Scientists remember the years between 2014 and 2017 as a particularly bad time for coral reefs. Elevated temperatures fueled by an El Niño climate pattern harmed about three-quarters of the…
Imagine showers of little green sand grains drifting through the ocean: collecting on coral reefs, rolling off the backs of whales, sprinkling schools of tuna — and helping to save…
HONG KONG — Thousands of grayish, oval-shaped oysters pepper the mudflats of far northern Hong Kong, clustering together on fragments of rock lining the shoreline or clamping onto abandoned concrete…
1. Negotiations for historic global plastics treaty break ground Global leaders cheered to the strike of a recycled-plastic gavel in March, signifying a landmark decision by the United Nations Environment…
A stone causeway connects an islet, the famed Aragonese Castle perched atop it, to the island of Ischia off the coast of Naples in southern Italy. Below water, along the…
On a Russian-led expedition in the northern Pacific Ocean in the 1740s, German botanist Georg Wilhelm Steller laid eyes on a species that captured his imagination. It looked like a…
BONTHE, Sierra Leone — As the sun rises over Bonthe, a small city on the coastline of Sierra Leone’s remote Sherbro Island, echoes of a not-so-distant colonial past bathe in…
Melting sea ice may evoke images of polar bears stranded on shrinking floes or dramatically collapsing ice shelves. But according to a study published recently in the journal Science, ice…
As Arctic sea ice begins melting out fully in summer, the frequency of strong El Niños could increase by 35% by century's end, causing extreme weather events to increase, says recent modeling study.
Sea turtles lumber from ocean to shore to lay their eggs in the sand. In some places, this effort is protected by humans who patrol beaches on foot, warding off…
The idea is simple but ambitious: protect the ocean by giving it the same kind of rights a person might have. No such legal mechanism is currently in place, but…
In April 2009, ocean explorer Enric Sala and a team of marine biologists dove into the waters around the southern Line Islands, an uninhabited archipelago in the central Pacific that…
Unstudied at sea until recently, this huge, fast-moving ocean current may hold a key to resolving climate change uncertainties. But doing remote research in southern oceans poses financial, data gathering, and unexpected challenges.
Heat waves are reshaping life in the Mediterranean, with few of the sea’s coves, bays and shorelines untouched, according to a recent study looking at the impact of marine heat…
A new study conveys a dire warning for the future: multiple tipping points could be triggered if global warming exceeds the critical threshold of 1.5°C. Published this week in Science,…
Balintang, PHILIPPINES — “Seaweeds are important to me because they give me joy when we plant them,” says Melinda Gimotea, as she crouches down among the pile of seaweed seedlings…
MEDAN, Indonesia — On a recent morning in Kampung Nelayan, a village on the northeastern coast of the island of Sumatra, fisherman Heri Gunawan returned home frustrated and dissatisfied. Heri…
DHAKA — Wasim Ali, 45, lived in one of the 55,000 houses destroyed by the deadly Super Cyclone Amphan in May of 2020. The tropical storm whipped up a tidal…
Antarctic krill — tiny, filter-feeding crustaceans that live in the Southern Ocean — have long existed in mind-boggling numbers. A 2009 study estimated that the species has a biomass of…
A new model that links climate change-reduced oceanic oxygen levels to smaller ectotherms predicts marine microorganisms could shrink as the world gets warmer, with impacts up the food chain, impacting fisheries.
Earth’s vast underwater kelp forests are a vital source of food, pharmaceuticals, and more, while storing huge amounts of carbon. These undersea forests are also at risk, but researchers are working to restore them.
Between 1869 and 1870, the H.M.S. Porcupine sailed into the North Atlantic Ocean and scraped a dredge along the seafloor. When the sailors pulled the dredge back to the surface,…
In the past, ocean carbon data was sparse, mostly gathered by ships. But the future of monitoring belongs to robot floats that deliver real-time data across vast oceans — even in the remote Antarctic Southern Ocean.
The Great Barrier Reef is experiencing a sixth mass bleaching event, the marine park’s authority confirmed today after completing aerial surveys of the region. This is the fourth time the…
In 2010, an influx of cold air blew over the lower Florida Keys, chilling the subtropical waters to temperatures as low as 11° Celsius, or 52° Fahrenheit. The coral reefs…
On May 25, 1946, the United States detonated the first underwater nuclear bomb at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands to see what kind of damage it would cause. This…
Unlike boundaries on the land, the ocean is contiguous — fish move and transcend international waters as they please, without bothering about jurisdictions. As long as ocean temperatures remain generally…
ACCRA, Ghana — White waves collide in a crash where the Volta River meets the Atlantic Ocean near Ada Foah. Warm, tropical air hovers over Ghana's coastline – but as…
Coral reefs are a unique and biodiverse natural ecosystem and economic keystones for many communities and nations. They only cover about 0.2% of the ocean floor but support 25% of…
When conservation ecologist Rob Harcourt went surfing off the coast of Sydney, Australia, he immediately knew the water was warmer than usual. “We had at least 23 [degrees Celsius, or…
